


a heart of golden lead

by Garecc, Gunpowderdtim (Garecc)



Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [31]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: (Jonny.), (kinda. jonny thinks about religon), Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Heart Attacks, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Near Death Experiences, Poetic, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Thoughts, Symbolism, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28052490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Garecc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Gunpowderdtim
Summary: A musing on Jonny, in which he spirals, and has an anxiety attack.This is not a story arc, this is stream of consciousness
Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799860
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	a heart of golden lead

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

The gears in your chest whirr 

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

That millennia old ache in your chest pounds.

Your heart is all wrong, the metal is cold, your blood makes its rounds through something that it was never meant to touch.

You are a dead man walking.

You are a dead man.

Your hands shake shake shake, your thoughts spin spin spin.

You are in the wrong.

You wait for the shouting to begin.

There's no way you won’t be screamed at.

There's no way the voices are wrong.

You have fucked up, and the peace is long gone.

You wait for the anger, the pain, the strife.

You wait for the fighting, the chloroform, the knife.

But no such terror comes, no such event rises.

And as you stumble back, you look them in the eyes.

They know that you are terrified.

The power dynamic is wrong, you're _supposed to be in control._

You’re supposed to be captain, you're supposed to have that **Role**

You’re not supposed to stumble back, hands trembling in front of you,

You’re not supposed to turn and flee from your own goddamn crew.

You are afraid.

You are afraid, and you don't know how to not be.

You’ve forgotten the nature of being safe.

You wonder if you’ve ever even felt it.

Something broke when you were a kid,

Something broke and you think it was _you._

There’s nothing left but the cracks in who you once were.

More void than self, more hole than person.

A puzzle missing so many pieces that it can no longer be seen as anything similar to what it may have been.

There’s nothing left but the pain.

But the smoke.

But the _blood_.

The blood.

The blood still runs through your veins like a curse

Like a blessing

Like life

Life death

Like soul

Like sin

Thats all you are, aren’t you?

Sin

You are the fire that burns, you are the death that claims, you are the destruction of burned homes, (no memories to pack, the casino burned behind you and you’ll never go marching home) and yet

And yet

And yet

And yet

_And yet_

And yet you are still afraid

And yet you do not yet know the satisfaction of death

And yet you laugh in the face of the universes darkest tragedies

And yet you _miss your Mother_

And yet you hate her with every breath she made you to take

And yet

And yet you are walking down this hallway, walking towards your room, walking towards what is the closest thing to salvation your damned self could hope to taste

The sound is thick, the sound is fuzzy

The world seems to cling to you and drag you down, drag you back, tiny pinpricks of too much as you fight onward

Always fighting, aren’t you?

Always fighting.

From your first breath with your wrong broken defective heart to your death when it was replaced with this tick tick tick tick tick tick tick ticking machine of cold metal.

You recall with such vividly you can taste it a time you said you had a heart of stone, hissing and spitting, shaking and breaking, and **She** just looked at you, and said: “No, you have a heart of gold, Jonathan.”

And you do, don't you?

They say gold is one of the most malleable metals, one best suited for making things out of, and you know from Nastya infodumping with stars in her eyes that they used to think that you could turn lead into gold if you treated it right, but in the end, it's impossible.

Which makes sense, doesn't it?

Lead poisons, lead corrupts, lead makes you think wrong makes you _die._

You were a rabid child, an angry one of sparks and anger and poison and hate. Of bitter mistakes and ruin.

And thats reflects in your first heart, the flesh one. 

Your first heart was wrong, was broken. Born all messed up. Carmilla described it as arrhythmia, but you were never one for complicated words.

But there was something wrong with it, something genetic. The heartbeat was uneven, and there was no fixing it.

Your heart was broken before you could break it yourself, and wasn't that just fucking _poetic._

It wasn't your heart that made you a bad kid, but you must’ve been born with something wrong with your head as well.

You shot your father through the spine and (didn't) feel any remorse.

Then, of course, your leaden corrupted heart of poison stopped beating.

And you died at the age of nineteen. A heart attack stealing you from the world of the oh-so-unfortunately living.

Then **She** brought you back, treated you to a heart of malleable gold and trapped you amongst the still-fucking-breathing.

But what does that matter?

The metal in your chest keeps on tick tick tick tick tick ticking.

And you can't turn lead to gold after all, so his heart was just as lead as ever.

Poisoning everyone who has the misfortune of knowing it.

You're a poison.

And you keep on fucking breathing.

Well, right now you're not really doing much of that.

Right now, your lungs can't seem to decide whether they want to breathe so quickly your head pounds your lungs ache nearly as much as your chest or stay so tight that even if you tried (and you're _trying_ ) you can't get any air in.

God, you're so fucking dizzy.

Your hand closes goes for the doorknob but the door is open before you hit it and you stumble inside.

There is so much, right now.

And your heart is _still fucking ticking._

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

It rips through the silence with a steady 

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

You curl on your bed, trying to hide from how overwhelmed you feel, from the chaos, from the everything and

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

and hear the door click as Aurora shuts it and

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

There is just so much

**_Tick tick tick tick_**

But the walls quiet soon enough, it almost feels like Aurora is tucking you in but

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

But Aurora can't stop the

**_Tick tick tick tick_ **

So it's just you

**_Tick tick tick_ **

It's just your heart and you

It might be gold but you sure fucking aren’t.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @gunpowderdtim


End file.
